VI

Bob followed this streaming multitude to the large structure that had earlier been pointed out to him as the boarding house.  It was a commodious affair with a narrow verandah to which led steps picked out by the sharp caulks of the rivermen’s boots.  A round stove held the place of honour in the first room.  Benches flanked the walls.  At one end was a table-sink, and tin wash-basins, and roller towels.  The men were splashing and blowing in the plunge-in-all-over fashion of their class.  They emerged slicked down and fresh, their hair plastered wet to their foreheads.  After a moment a fat and motherly woman made an announcement from a rear room.  All trooped out.

The dining room was precisely like those Bob remembered from recollections of the river camps of his childhood.  There were the same long tables covered with red oilcloth, the same pine benches worn smooth and shiny, the same thick crockery, and the same huge receptacles steaming with hearty—­and well-cooked—­food.  Nowhere does the man who labours with his hands fare better than in the average lumber camp.  Forest operations have a largeness in conception and execution that leads away from the habit of the mean, small and foolish economics.  At one side, and near the windows, stood a smaller table.  The covering of this was turkey-red cloth with white pattern; it boasted a white-metal “caster”; and possessed real chairs.  Here Bob took his seat, in company with Fox, Collins, Mason, Tally and the half-dozen active young fellows he had seen handling the scaling rules near the ships.

At the men’s tables the meal was consumed in a silence which Bob learned later came nearer being obligatory than a matter of choice.  Conversation was discouraged by the good-natured fat woman, Mrs. Hallowell.  Talk delayed; and when one had dishes to wash——­

The “boss’s table” was more leisurely.  Bob was introduced to the sealers.  They proved to be, with one exception, young fellows of twenty-one or two, keen-eyed, brown-faced, alert and active.  They impressed Bob as belonging to the clerk class, with something added by the outdoor, varied life.  Indeed, later he discovered them to be sons of carpenters, mechanics and other higher-class, intelligent workingmen; boys who had gone through high school, and perhaps a little way into the business college; ambitious youngsters, each with a different idea in the back of his head.  They had in common an air of capability, of complete adequacy for the task in life they had selected.  The sixth sealer was much older and of the riverman type.  He had evidently come up from the ranks.

There was no general conversation.  Talk confined itself strictly to shop.  Bob, his imagination already stirred by the incidents of his stroll, listened eagerly.  Fox was getting in touch with the whole situation.

“The main drive is down,” Tally told him, “but the Cedar Branch hasn’t got to the river yet.  What in blazes did you want to buy that little strip this late in the day for?”